Paperboy

In Elite’s conversion of the arcade game Paperboy it’s up
to you, as an all American skoolkid, to deliver the early morning newspapers
fighting against fantastic odds. Negotiating your BMX bike around what seems to
be a rather unsavoury neighbourhood, hazards have to be avoided — but lots of
points are waiting to be won for accurate lobbing of newspapers.

Certain households on your round don’t order the Daily Sun, the paper
which you are so diligently trying to deliver. This is sad, but you can get
your own back on these non-subscribers. Pedalling through the diagonally
scrolling landscape, points can be collected by bunging a newsprint missile
through a window on a house with a dark door — the occupants don’t take the
Sun. Well-aimed newspapers can result in broken window panes, chopped up tomb
stones and ruffled dustbin lids, too. If you’re feeling particularly vindictive
then grannies can be zapped out of their bath-chairs as they take the morning
air, boys can be knocked off their mopeds and flowers flattened.

Households that order the newspaper get special treatment — their
newspapers must be accurately thrown so that they land in the mail box. Two
hundred and fifty points are scored for each paper safely delivered. The papers
in your delivery bag are displayed on a panel to the right of the screen, and
extra ammo can be collected by cycling over the boxes of newsprint dotted
around the pavements.

But there’s more to being a paperboy than just chucking papers around
the town. Careful cycling is called for to negotiate a variety of obstacles
including dustbins, fire hydrants and garden ornaments. And then there’s the
people... old folk seem to walk into your path deliberately; workmen can’t hear
you because of their ear-plugs, and have to be avoided. Skateboarders can be
fairly lethal as they scoot around at breakneck speed, and runaway tyres and
exploding bombs also crop up from time to time. Contact with the nasties
results in a crash and the loss of one of your five lives — as in the original,
a scrolling message reminds you what a silly boy you have been...

Each day of the week, the paper round has to be attempted before
paperboy can go out to play on the BMX track at the end of town. Bonus points
can be collected for hitting targets dotted around the BMX course with a
well-aimed newspaper.

At the end of the day’s work the paper shop prepares a report on
progress. For every paper wrongly delivered, a house cancels its order and if
too many of the houses cancel it’s the sack! However, on subsequent rounds if
all the papers are correctly delivered you win back one customer, but the game
gets that little bit harder on subsequent days. It really is mean on these
streets...

Producer: ElitePrice: £7.95Author: Steve Lamb and Tony Mac

On the BMX track at the end of town. 250 points have just been awarded for a direct hit on a target, the paperbag is full and there are ramps ahead...

CRITICISM

“Paperboy is one of the arcade games that just didn’t appeal to
me. Elite, as usual, have done an excellent job of converting from the original
— the game is quite pretty, and the action is generally fast and furious. The
graphics are carefully detailed, scrolling smartly in 3D, and the characters
are well animated. The colour is unfortunately in boring old blue ’n’
black-o-vision with a little bit of magenta thrown to add a touch of colour
clash. The sound is good, with lots of spot effects and a couple of tunettes.
I didn’t find this game as addictive or as playable as it should have been,
but it certainly is worth a look if you enjoyed playing it in the arcades.”

“This game is well wicked. The graphics are a bit of a wimp-out on the part of
Elite, but the game has a strange amount of addictivity to it. Though losing a
lot in comparison to the original arcade version, Paperboy offers
a good deal in the way of long term entertainment. Things like the racetrack
and the old grannies make the game all the more fun to play, and the level of
frustration is just right. When a drunkard comes wobbling down the road and
knocks you off your bike, the urge to try again is still there. Though not as
good as the Ghosts and Goblins and Bombjack
conversions, Paperboy is still a pretty good game, and worth the
asking price.”

“Although the game doesn’t contain lots of different things to do,
Paperboy, like most of the Elite games, is fiendishly addictive —
and once you’ve started there’s no stopping. The graphics are extremely well
drawn, and despite them all being very small, most of them are recognisable. I
felt more use could have been made of the Spectrum colours. Control was quite
hard to get used to at first, but after realising that you can’t brake and turn
at the same time, things became quite fluent. The presentation is quite bare,
apart from the high-score table and the very well drawn front page of the Daily
Sun. The sound was more informative than good. I’m sure that anyone buying
Paperboy will play it for hours — but come away with the feeling
‘not much to that!’”